Feburary 8th 2012

Time has really flown, can believe it is Feb 2012 already. Sigh, my blogs get further and further apart.

We have finally finished our harvest. It has been the latest finish ever for many people here in WA due to the wet weather.You know it is difficult when a lot of farmers had to deal with headers getting bogged in the middle of summer!

After a mild December, late January saw records broken for the longest spell of over 40 degrees temperatures.Something we could do without, I personally hate the hot weather and look forward to cooler conditions.

On the farming front we are drenching all our sheep. Worms have been particularly bad this year due to the extended green conditions last year. We are also feeding up the wet ewes in preparation for mating. We always put the rams in with the ewes on valentines day. Hopefully this helps our lambing percentage.

On the dog front Ginger is getting the most training. He has hit the ‘rebellious teen’ stage and has become quite a handful, despite him being quite soft as a young dog. So I have had to step up the discipline to sort him out. He seems to be responding but time will tell. See the video page for a video of Ginger.

The Jake/Ripper pups are quite different from each other. Rocket appears soft, calm and with a lot of feel on sheep. Rebel is more full on, stronger and tougher all round. I like them both so will keep them for a while yet.

Barru Zilla is not doing much yet but no hurry for her.

Barru Zilla.

I have sold Fern, one of the Bella X Caleb pups and still have Minty and Shamrock. Both have started working, but I will keep Shamrock and sell Minty as I already have enough males in the camp. See video of Shamrock on the video page.

Shamrock and Minty.

Otto, my Caleb X Just Bounce pup is working well but going through a really soft stage and is not taking any discipline. So I won’t do much with him, just let him grow up a bit more.

Otto.

Balto is getting some work as he will be doing a fair bit of trialling this year hopefully. He is still pretty full on but listens most of the time. Trialling is another matter though, so we could have a few retirements, and/or feral moments.

Balto and Zilla enjoying a swim.

Bella had a holiday at the vets when hunger got the better of her and she tore into the garbage bag and ate a lot of it’s contents. Foil, plastic, styrofoam etc and anything else that smelled vaguely of food. Fortunately she seems to have gotten off unscathed but I have to watch her like a hawk now, as she heads to the bag as soon as she has a chance.She has been working well for me and so I will trial her again this year.

This is usually a very hot trial. Last year I judged there and it was uncomfortable to say the least. Perhaps we might be lucky this year and get a cool change, but I am not holding my breath.

So as usuall the first trial rolls around and I still havent trained my dogs well enough. Happens every year. Admittedly the hot weather makes training diffficult but a lot of the time I can't be bothered. Training alone is always a bit boring and only when I get together with others do I get a bit motivated.

It will be a busy trialling year too, fifteen trials this year, more than usual, so I hope to get to most of them., we will see.